Black Student Success Plan Unveiled; Board Backs Off Acero?

Last week, Chicago Public Schools unveiled its long-awaited Black Student Success Plan, only to be hit the next day with a federal civil rights complaint lodged by a Virginia-based group, Parents Defending Education. Ironically, this complaint may spur action, while complaints from Chicago parents against the district languish. 

In the plan, CPS acknowledges it looked to similar efforts in Los Angeles, Denver, and Portland for inspiration. Parents Defending Education filed a similar complaint against the Los Angeles initiative in November. The Biden administration recommended the Los Angeles school district drop race as an official requirement to participate in the initiative. LA did so, and Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told the Los Angeles Times that they were able to continue serving the same students in the same schools as before.

Chicago’s plan sets ambitious 5-year goals: 

• Doubling the number of Black male teachers hired 
• Increasing Black male teacher retention rates from 91% to 93%
• Decreasing out-of-school suspensions and expulsions of Black students by 40%

But the implementation is not as well spelled out. A one-page overview of the plan’s “implementation approach” reads like a general plan for any intervention: launch universal supports across the district, have network and central office teams analyze data, create school-based professional learning communities that focus tightly on their school and listen to student voices while trying new strategies.

Community roundtables introducing the plan will be held across the city and online between March 10 and April 2. You can register for one or more of them here. If you’re free on Thursday at noon, there might be spots left in the To & Through Project webinar on the plan, at noon today.

Next week, at the agenda review meeting, we should learn more about how the board will comply with the state law requiring it to create a Black Student Achievement Committee. The district website introduces the plan by stating, “Reporting and progress monitoring at the Board level will adhere to Illinois Public Act 103-0584, which established the Chicago Board of Education Black Student Achievement Committee.” How that works remains to be seen.

What's on Thursday's Agenda?

A full board at last. New and final appointed board member Cydney Wallace will take the oath of office.

Acero Update and Amended Resolution. Chicago Public Schools will update the board on its efforts to prevent campus closures at Acero. 

The board appears to be walking back its December 2024 resolution directing CPS to work with Acero to keep the seven campuses slated for closure next year open while creating a plan for the district to absorb five of the campuses. The amended resolution going up for a vote on Thursday proposes the district work with Acero to keep just four campuses open next year and “create a plan of the viability to transition” those four campuses to CPS in 2026-27. 

The four campuses the amended resolution proposes to maintain are: Casas, Fuentes, Santiago, and Tamayo. In the amended resolution, the board directs CPS to work with Acero to help families find new schools for September while Acero winds down operations at Cruz, Cisneros, and Paz, which will close at the end of this school year.

Board members I spoke with say the expenses, particularly capital expenses, of taking on the fifth campus appeared to be more than the district could handle financially. Chalkbeat’s Reema Amin put Acero leadership on the record insisting CPS must cover operational and capital costs as well as solve deficits. She also reports that covering those costs for all seven schools would exceed state limits on the amount districts can spend on charter schools. But I gather the district’s presentation could offer some last-minute information about the costs for Cisneros, prompting last-minute decisions among the board members, so this will be a vote to watch tomorrow. 

Other Contracts of Note: Back to Our Future is also slated for an up-or-down vote tomorrow. 

What’s Not on the Agenda? Charter renewals. These are often approved at the board's January meeting, but are being held until at least March this year. In recent years, the board has shortened charter renewal terms to four years or less, a far cry from 2017, when KIPP Chicago received a 7-year renewal.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS) has been advocating for a return to longer renewals, arguing that more time between renewals creates more stability and focus inside charter schools. “Five-year plans could be coterminous with 5-year renewals,” a logical way to keep schools focused on improvement, observed INCS President Andrew Broy. INCS recommends renewals of seven to 10 years for high-performing charter schools, five to seven years for those meeting expectations, and conditional renewals of no less than three years.

What’s Being Tabled? I’m hearing the resolutions to appoint Emma Lozano and Carlos Rivas, Jr. to board seats on the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund will be held until next month due to additional board member interest in serving on the CTPF board. This signals that the board continues to wrestle with its elected/appointed divisions and with internal dissent about who should be appointed to external boards. 

March Madness: Looming Pension Tension

At its March 20 meeting, the board will vote on whether to pay the city $175 million toward pensions for non-teaching CPS staff who are members of the Municipal Employees Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF). At a time when the district, the city, and the state are all short of funds, and independent-minded board members are pushing back against the mayor, this vote will have hefty political and financial ramifications.

Last week, the mayor’s office sent a budget presentation to school board members proposing that the district borrow $242 million to cover the pension payment plus the costs of the still-not-final contract with the Chicago Teachers Union. WBEZ reports that the city’s borrowing proposal assumes interest rates of under 5%, describing that as “relatively low for CPS.”

According to recent Chicago Tribune reporting, if the school board refuses to take the mayor up on this proposal, the city would have to dip into its reserves, further risking its bond rating, which already took a hit after the city passed its 2025 budget. The Tribune reports that, in a statement, the school district said it could only make the payment if the city releases more TIF funds.

Seven elected board members are already questioning or likely to question the fiscal wisdom of the school district making the payment, especially through borrowing. It’s possible between one and three more members could join them. Will Mayor Johnson find more TIF money? Will board members block a second attempt to get the district to borrow to make the pension payment and fund the next teacher contract? Stay tuned...and see you next week.